Mind over matter – how to communicate wellbeing effectively

Wellbeing as an offering is often overlooked. Historically, seen less favourably as a tool to embed change, it’s now gaining traction in the HR community. The result has been widespread editorial coverage and jaw-dropping stats on reasons to believe its importance in the workplace:

49 per cent of stressed employees take sick leave in comparison to 36 per cent of relaxed staff1

It’s clear a wellbeing programme is critical for employers, but having an on-going communication strategy in place is just as important.

Differentiate your wellbeing identity from other parts of the business

People should instantly recognise and associate wellbeing to the messaging you want to promote. Often wrapped up in negative connotations, workplace perceptions of wellbeing certainly need to change at leadership level:

68 per cent of business leaders report a ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude at an executive level, creating hurdles to conversations about wellbeing5

62 per cent of leaders think they need to show they don’t suffer from ill health6

50 per cent of managers say it isn’t possible to be a good leader and vulnerable simultaneously7

Personalise your communication strategy

Wellbeing is multi-faceted and wide-ranging in subject-matter, from financial to mental wellness. Your offering, therefore, needs to be clearly understood and appreciated by all your people.

A business with 1,000 employees which poorly communicates its offering incurs a cost of more than £470,000 a year, compared to a company with similar benefits that has a watertight comms strategy in place8

Consider what elements of wellbeing within your offering will be ‘top of the mind’ to your target audience. Don’t forget seasonality also has a part to play….

Create a seamless employee experience

When it comes to communicating wellbeing, it’s not beneficial to create platform silos – or worse bombard your people with a multitude of messages. Employees expect a seamless experience across all channels and where possible, piggyback on communication when the opportunity arises:

68 per cent of employees would like a seamless access to all of their benefits, preferring a ‘one stop shop’ solution; with 54 per cent wanting access from their mobile device and 52 per cent wanting a single sign-on access (SSO)9

A good example of how a seamless experience can effectively work is a project we worked on for our client Quintiles. The team developed a one-stop-shop Reward Hub with SSO access which tied all elements of HR together – including wellbeing features like Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) – and the results were impressive:

Monthly web visits increased by 119%

Monthly page views increased by 98%

59% returning visitors – indicating an engaged workforce

As a result, the project was selected as a finalist at the Employee Benefits 2016 awards for ‘best use of technology’. If you want to know how the Quintiles SSO project worked, you can read the case study in detail here.